Hume and Edwards on 'Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?'

Abstract

Suppose that five minutes ago, to our astonishment, a healthy, full-grown duck suddenly popped into existence on the table in front of us. Suppose further that there was no first moment at which the duck existed but rather a last moment, T, at which it had yet to exist. Then for each moment t at which the duck has existed, there is an explanation of why the duck existed at t: there was a moment t’ earlier than t but later than T such that the duck existed at t’, and it was only to be expected that a healthy duck would survive the brief time from t’ to t. But do these explanations, taken collectively, explain why the duck, instead of never having existed at all, has existed at all moments later than T? Presumably not. But if not, this seems to discredit the style of explanation offered by David Hume and Paul Edwards for the infinite regress they hypothesize of causes and effects.